


Try

by bearonthecouch



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Broken Promises, Circle Mages, M/M, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27915463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: Anders has spent more than enough time in forced solitude. To have his one stable relationship pulled out from under him in the name of justice... there's no word for it other than cruel.
Relationships: Anders/Karl Thekla
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Try

Anders is not quiet when Karl is taken away. There are two templars escorting the older mage, each holding one of his arms, though he is not fighting. In front of him, his wrists are bound tight within anti-magic manacles. Anders winces when he sees the reddened skin chafing where the enchanted metal rests.

“You can't take him!” he cries, and he fights his way past First Enchanter Irving and runs toward Karl. Another templar steps in to block his way before he can cross half the distance. The templar gathers his power and sends Anders sprawling onto the floor with a Holy Smite that pounds like nails through his skull and painfully sears the mana from within him. He struggles to catch his breath, but by the time he does so, Karl has been dragged nearly out of the room.

The huge gates that lock the Tower away from the rest of the world loom above both of them. “Karl!” Anders yells, reaching out as if his fingers could close around the other man, and pull him back. Karl looks back over his shoulder, his eyes imploring Anders to be strong. But Anders has gotten his feet under him. He breaks away from the templar guarding him, and runs after his lover.

“Anders, don't,” Karl pleads.

To Irving's utter shock, the boy stills. He listens to what Karl says. He is breathing heavily, and his hands are clenched into tight fists, but he listens. “Karl,” he whines.

Karl does not fight his way out of the templars' hold. He holds Anders still with just his gaze. “Please,” the older mage says, so softly that Irving can barely hear it. “Anders, please. I'm sorry.”

Anders drops his gaze, and makes a soft keening sound that is almost a cry. “Don't go,” he begs, as though Karl has any choice in the matter. In fact, the templars are already continuing to drag him away.

Irving wraps his hand around Anders's arm, steering him away from the main hall before Karl has entirely disappeared. The boy wipes his free arm across his face, scrubbing away his tears. He pulls himself out of Irving's grasp before they're halfway down the hall, but Irving still refuses to let him out of his sight. Anders seems to sense this, and despite his earlier outburst, he is in no mood to fight. He follows Irving, dejected, into his office.

“Anders, this is for your own good,” Irving says, after several long minutes of silence. The words are familiar and just as easily ignored now as they were when Irving said them while wielding the cane or the strap through Anders's first years in the tower. Anders sets his jaw stubbornly and seethes in his chair, but the truth is, without Karl here, there is very little fight in him. He spits in Irving's face. 'Very little' is not the same as none.

Irving calmly wipes the spittle away from his cheek and sighs heavily. They both know that there are templars just outside the door, but unless Anders has actually run away from the Tower or confronted a templar directly, Greagoir leaves his discipline mostly up to Irving. And the First Enchanter is not afraid to be alone with any mage in his care, not even a troublemaker like Anders. He tries to look the boy in the eyes, though Anders scowls down at the floor and will not look up. They have had these conversations so very, very often.

“You have to understand how this looks,” Irving pleads. “A senior enchanter and a much younger student-”

“I'm Harrowed.”

 _You weren't when this started_ , Irving wants to say. And does it matter? Karl and Anders were... whatever they were, for only a matter of months, but that is months too long when it comes to the immutable harshness of Chantry law. For Irving to know and do nothing... and yet, that was exactly what he'd done. The truth was that Karl made Anders better, for a time. The intimacy they shared healed something within the boy, and it was obvious to everyone from Greagoir to Wynne.

“Anders-” he starts again, but the boy shakes his head fiercely.

“Fuck you!” he spits. Irving blinks, but he's hardly surprised. Anders sags in his seat, flipping between rage and wounded depression with nauseating speed. No wonder people think mages like them are possessed by something inhuman.

“I suppose I deserve that,” Irving mutters.

“Karl trusted you,” Anders says, and his voice now is hollow and cold. “He trusted you, and now...”

Irving has heard dark rumors out of Kirkwall, for so many years that he has to believe that at least some of them are true. Anders's accusations are more true than he knows. His stomach flips because the boy is absolutely right. Karl trusted him, and he sacrificed a good man to placate Greagoir on a completely different battlefield. Karl was a pawn to lose, to protect Uldred, Jowan, Rhyanon, and even Anders himself. To prevent Greagoir from cracking down harder on the already restive children of the Tower, Irving stopped trying to rationalize Anders's and Karl's relationship, and let the Knight Commander step in to disolve it.

“I'm sorry,” Irving says, and Anders glares at him. To the boy, it must seem like his apologies are always meaningless. But he's just trying to do what's best for the greatest number. For Anders too.

Anders shifts in his chair, and he looks so heartbreakingly desperate that it almost makes Irving remember what it was like to be young and in something that might be called love if it weren't taking place within the walls of a Circle.

“Karl was a good man,” Anders says, and he realizes that he's talking in the past tense. Like Karl is dead.

Irving bows his head. “I know.”

Karl was the kind of man who would take a boy like Anders under his wing, and love him when no one else would or could. Anders has spent more than enough time in forced solitude. To have his one stable relationship pulled out from under him in the name of justice... there's no word for it other than cruel. Irving bites his tongue. _There was no better option_ , he tells himself. He doesn't believe the words any better now than he had when he first went to Greagoir.

Anders is now tapping his fingers against the side of his leg, restless. His eyes flicker toward Irving's briefly, looking for reassurance he won't get. In the absence of comfort, Anders clings to his anger. Irving needs to soothe it, or who knows what kind of fires the boy will set. He sighs. He's no good at this sort of thing. It's Wynne who has always had a bond with Anders. Wynne, and Karl. He's too much of an authority figure for Anders to ever willingly listen to, even if Irving could convince him that they're on the same side, and in this matter, he isn't even sure that they are.

 _I tried_ , Irving thinks. _I tried to do the right thing. To protect you._ Even now, he is still trying to protect Anders, as he has been since the first time the boy landed in front of his desk at the age of eleven, after fighting the templars who brought him to the Tower so hard they'd had to resort to shackling him even at that tender age. Even back then, Anders had spit and cursed in Irving's face, refusing his offers of help. And now, what help can Irving offer?

“You're not alone,” Irving hears himself saying. “I need you to know that. If you feel like you can't talk to me, go to Wynne, or any of the other Senior Enchanters.” Anders scowls at him, his eyes flashing with familiar fire. “Just please don't make any reckless decisions,” Irving begs.

Anders shrugs. They both know there's little chance of that. “You took away the only good thing I had here,” he accuses, dark and dangerous. Irving nods, because Anders is right and because he made a promise long ago not to lie to his charges.

“I know,” he says. Nothing else that he might try to say matters now.

Anders raises an eyebrow. He was hardly expecting the First Enchanter to agree with him.

“Anders, please,” Irving begs. “Don't throw away what he's given you.”

Anders scowls again. But Irving is right. Karl would want him to follow the rules, to teach and learn and be a good little Tower mage. Anders has never been that kind of person, though. But he owes it to the man to try, doesn't he?

He gives Irving a slight nod, and the First Enchanter sighs with relief. “Thank you,” he says softly.

He watches Anders, and he wants to believe that this one conversation will be enough to hold the boy here, but he knows better.

And Anders leans back in his chair, and closes his eyes. He _wants_ to try. But he knows better. He won't last long in the Tower; his heart is already burning with the need to run, to escape the hollow grief that tears at his insides.

It doesn't matter that he's lying to Irving. He always lies to Irving. But he doesn't want to lie to Karl. Still, he knows the man would understand. Karl never blamed him for the times he ran away, or fought the templars, or made any of the other reckless decisions Irving condemns him for. Karl had always just... been there, no matter how much pain Anders was in or how nonsensical his actions were. It was as if he understood that he wasn't really making a choice at all, that all his choices had been stripped away. Karl had never fully understood why Anders couldn't settle in the Tower the way he could, but he had never _blamed_ Anders. He was the only one who hadn't spun the rules and consequences into a maelstrom of pain with Anders at the center. He was the only one who'd held Anders and whispered that it wasn't his fault.

It still isn't his fault, days later, when he flees through the Ferelden forests with his lungs and legs on fire as he forces himself to run, as fast as he can, as far as he can. He wants to go until he can no longer see the Tower in the sky.

Irving sits alone in his office in the dark, not surprised at all, and his stomach constricts with guilt, and fear. Because when Anders is caught – and he will be caught – he knows how it will go, the same familiar refrain: _I tried_. I tried to protect you and I couldn't. I tried to help you and I couldn't. I tried to do the best thing, for the greatest number, and I failed you in the process. If the Tower is anything, it's the place where trying isn't enough.

When Greagoir pushes his way into the room, Irving takes a deep breath and lets his eyes flicker up to meet the Knight Commander's. “I will of course do everything I can to help you find him,” he says meekly. Here he is, saying it again: “I'll try.”


End file.
